So you saw ‘college life’ portrayed in movies, students hanging out with red cups in their hands, singing and dancing while loud music is playing. Well, welcome to the real college, where you can see two consecutive sunrises without sleeping, studying or at least trying to. Where your most frequent social life will be spending time searching for research articles in the library. Based on the multiple experiences I have had at Eastern, here's my advice for you.
1. Classic Eastern
At Eastern, if you hear of a free food event, and food serving starts at 10:00 a.m., it will probably be gone by 9:50 a.m. Here, good free food finishes fast. I mean like your reflexes, fast, like whenever someone tries to see your Amazon search history. Also, here, you will wear polyester and everyone will ask you why you're so dressed up. Don’t be too concerned. Furthermore, you will also meet some people who 'fix' their hair by wearing a baseball hat. Please spread the awareness, let them know it’s not cool.
2. Common Sense
It is scientifically-proven theory that assigned book readings have the potential of sliding you into a short coma depending on the number of pages. So, you will need to improvise. Don’t worry, it will come naturally. And, for the love of God and all that is good and holy, DO NOT save every homework for breaks. Semester breaks are good for only helping you gain more weight and reminding you why you chose that particular major or why you chose a university six states away. Also, don't leave everything for weekends. By now, you should know that 'weekend' is an illusion of the world's imagination. It goes away just thinking about it. It goes without saying that you should always try to cultivate relationships with not only your professors, but also with faculty members, especially the secretaries, who would let you use the office phone "just this once" when your phone dies from Instagram overuse. In them, you may have gotten your first real adult friends.
3. Friends
At Eastern, you will become family with some good friends. There will be days when you’ll all stay up all night to have super serious intellectual debates, like should Minecraft mod shower, etc. They will teach you many things, ‘life hacks,’ if you will. You will need them to help you in critical life moments such as making sure you wake up by 7:55 a.m.
4. Foes
In a similar manner, you will manage to scare off some people. Your heroic charm (or weirdness, as some will call it) will mystify some people. They are the people that will pick on everything that you do or say and reflect it in their behavior. It’s very okay to let those people go. They are the type of people who would write down every word (with punctuation) from the slides that are posted on Brightspace. They are a lost cause and you're better off without them.
Some days, you will have to choose between maintaining your sanity, GPA, or bank account. Don’t be afraid to choose the wrong option. Some days you will see two consecutive sunrises without sleeping, other days you will get more sleep in class than in your room. And so you know, consuming much caffeine only raises your heart rate, it has zero effect on your stress. There will be days when you will stop in the middle of homework and literally think about your life like, “Oh, God! Graduating college is still 3 years away?! What am I going to do with my life?” Hold on, you are so close. Someday, you might feel special and unique. You know, like a college veteran. I mean, what’s more to experience that you haven’t? Don’t be that kid. You are lovely—to your family at least, maybe some friends, but you are not special. And no, you don’t deserve an extension, sit down please. Some days you will need to totally reinvent yourself. Like, you know, “My name is Sam, I’m a risk-taker.” You will make some relationship strides that looked reasonable at first, but you end up regretting them. Learn from them. On the whole, you will change so much, in many ways and barely even realize it. That’s okay. That’s the essence of
